Template:Did you know nominations/The Cleanest Race

The Cleanest Race

 * ... that according to a study of North Korean propaganda, the Government of North Korea is guided by a derivation of Japanese fascism?
 * ALT1:... that propaganda in North Korea claims that Koreans are morally, but not physically, superior to foreigners?
 * Reviewed: 2012 Istanbul Anti-Armenian protests

Created/expanded by Shrigley (talk). Self nom at 04:08, 27 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Should be rejected for blatant POV pushing. A related article, Pure blood theory in Korea, was already posted on DYI despite the ongoing controversy over the neutrality of its title. Cydevil38 (talk) 06:50, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Totally irrelevant and disruptive comment. The article is written neutrally, all the content is attributable to inline sources, and it is free of copyright violations and plagiarism. Where it isn't, and somebody points that out, I will fix it. Apologies to the reviewer for having to see a user who has been hounding me. Shrigley (talk) 07:46, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

The article was:
 * composed on December 24
 * contains 12K of content, mostly text
 * appears written in a neutral manner, at least superficially. I verified that the Christopher Hitchens and the New York Times reviews were favorable; many of the sources I couldn't check directly, and it is frankly beyond my ability to say that the article is precisely neutral.  It certainly should be close enough for our purposes - it would be more biased to exclude it based on our disagreement, as it is certainly a notable source at this point.
 * Sources are cited inline, and the sources I looked at mentioned the Japanese connection, it being after all the point of the book.
 * Differences in writing style from the available sources make it fairly clear there is no simple plagiarism/copyvio, though I didn't actually use professional tools to check (do we ever?).

The hook (the original, which I vastly prefer) was:
 * 136/200 characters
 * Very illuminating - indeed, I do not review the alternate here because the original hook is so much the point of the book and provides a whole new perspective.
 * Directly supported by a New Republic reference
 * Controversial, but neutrally reflecting the book's premise as it should. The sole quibble I might find is that the hook says "a study of" rather than "a book about".  Because books are meant to sell copies, the content of a book is not something that I think of in quite the same way as a study which is (in theory) not sensationalized to appeal to an audience.  I would nominally prefer
 * ALT2:  ... that according to The Cleanest Race, a book about North Korean propaganda, the Government of North Korea is guided by a derivation of Japanese fascism? However I am prepared to support the original hook as well as a second choice.


 * Editor did a QPQ; I don't see a picture.

Therefore I think we should approve this DYK, preferably with ALT2, otherwise with the original; I express no opinion about ALT1. Wnt (talk) 17:45, 27 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Symbol redirect vote4.png Review needed of ALT2, proposed by the reviewer, to see whether the hook (and the article) should be approved. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:36, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Symbol confirmed.svg Going with ALT2 per consensus. Hook verified online, article ready, character count confirmed at 6882 by DYKcheck!  Rcej (Robert) –  talk  11:36, 18 January 2013 (UTC)